Iran refuses to discontinue its nuclear-capable ballistic missile tests, in the face of the threat of new US sanctions and has daubed on one of its weapons the slogan “Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth.”

US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Kerry fondly hoped that the nuclear agreement signed with Iran would bring to the surface a new type of leader - more liberal and less liable to restart the nuclear arms program - in the twin elections taking place in the Islamic Republic Friday, Feb. 26. They are in for a disappointment, say debkafile’s Iran analysts. The hardliners and fundamentalists purged moderates from the lists of candidates for the Majlis and the Assembly of Experts, which is responsible for choosing the supreme leader.

Putin, Rouhani and Assad plan to use the Syrian ceasefire loophole for further conquests. Their next targets are Idlib in the north, on the Turkish border and completing the takeover of the Syrian-Israeli and Syrian-Jordanian border strips in the South.

Obama and Putin have no intention of cutting Turkey and Saudi Arabia into their joint plans for the Syrian military conflict or future. Erdogan, while bitterly opposed to their sponsorship of the Kurds, will think twice before stepping into Syria.

The dickering for a compromise on a ceasefire in Syria has not shaken the Obama-Putin pact which gives Russian the leading military role in the conflict. The ceasefire lines will reflect the US and Russian lines east and west respectively of the Euphrates River.

Russian forces are in the middle of a major operation to seize Aleppo, imposing truces in central Syria and pummeling rebel forces in the south, in support of Syrian army, Hizballah and pro-iranian forces.

Russia is determined to bomb Syrian rebels into submission by a massive aerial campaign, comparable to the American 2003 “shock and awe” offensive over Baghdad. Only this time, it is Russia which is invading Syria. Tuesday, Feb. 2, saw a wave of air strikes, for which heavy Tupolev Tu-22M strategic bombers flew in from their base in Russia. President Vladimir is not deterred by the hundreds of civilian casualties caused in these raids, nor by rebel groups’ threat to walk out of the Geneva conference because he knows Barack Obama is behind him.

The Syrian peace conference in Geneva has only one real task: to rubberstamp the quiet deals Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin have struck for ending the Syrian war. Their pact was first revealed in last week’s DEBKA Weekly. The current issue out this Friday has the sequel, which exclusively covers Putin’s next steps. He is already studying a short list of candidates as Bashar Assad's successor. This issue also reveals US-Russian plans for eradicating ISIS by the targeted date of July 1.
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The accord reached by Obama and Putin to end the Syrian war by forcing all the parties into line is the first dual superpower effort to solve a major Middle East crisis. Both sides made concessions, one of which was Russia’s consent to push Bashar Assad out.

Turkish and Gulf rulers were clearly hostile to the US-Russian blueprint for Syria presented them this week by VP Biden and Secretary Kerry, especially since they were sidelined by the dominant Russian military role.